| Rabbi Leon Klenicki, an international pioneer in Catholic-Jewish relations, announced his retirement December 31, 2000, as the interfaith affairs director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York. He joined the ADL staff in 1973 as director of Jewish-Catholic relations.
Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore, U.S. bishops' moderator of Catholic-Jewish relations, said the rabbi's numerous books and articles on Catholic-Jewish issues—many co-written with Catholic scholars—“constitute an extremely valuable resource for anyone who is in the field of Catholic-Jewish relations. We have not always agreed on certain issues. . . but he really has gone the extra mile in trying to explain to Catholic groups in Europe and South America, as well as in our own country, the position of the Jewish community, and also a perspective of the Jewish faith that is extremely helpful.”
Rabbi Klenicki has been one of the major leaders who helped to implement the vision of the Second Vatican Council in the United States and internationally as it applies to Jews and Catholics. While best known in United States interfaith circles, Rabbi Klenicki has played an important role in Catholic-Jewish relations in Latin America since the 1960s. In 1968, in connection with Pope Paul VI's visit to Bogota, Colombia, he gave a major paper at the first continent-wide Latin American meeting of Catholics and Jews. For the Latin American bishops' council and the Argentine Council of Jews and Christians, he did the first study in South America of the treatment of Jews and Judaism in Catholic catechetical texts. In the 1990s he traveled several times to Poland to help develop programs of Catholic-Jewish understanding. Rabbi Klenicki has written, edited, co-written or co-edited hundreds of articles and books. Many have appeared in both English and Spanish, and some have also been translated into other languages, including Italian, Portuguese, German and Polish. Rabbi Klenicki, who turned 70 in September, said he will remain an ADL consultant and will continue teaching at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, New York, where he has been a professor of Jewish Studies since 1978. He will also continue as the ADL's co-liaison with the Vatican, a position he shares with Rabbi David Rosen of Jerusalem. He said he plans to devote more time to several research and writing projects, including a planned collection of studies on the New Testament and rabbinic Judaism. He also hopes to finish a book on daily spirituality he is co-writing with his wife, Myra. |